Catch and Release

May 2, 2007

You can take the girl out of her high heels, but you can't take the high heels out of a girl. Let me explain...

I used to be an all-star pitcher. And by "all-star" I mean, in my 5 year stint of a softball career, I pitched 4, and was accompanied by one full-game-pitched no hitter. Clearly, my one and only claim to fame so far in life. Ten years later, without so much as a nod in the direction of a softball glove, I decide to grab one and head on out for a friendly game of catch at the local elementary school field.

Let me preface...although I say I pitched, somewhat decently, back in my day, I never said I could throw. If you've ever seen me play beer pong, or even a piece of candy across the office, this won't come as a suprise. I have no aim. And even worse, I have no power. Are you standing 20 feet away from me? Move closer, you're too far.

Anyway, so here I am, playing catch with my newly purchased (gifted) hot pink and black softball glove. We've got a baseball and a softball to throw around for variety. And I decide, hey, let me throw a few pitches! As most of my great ideas are, this was a very bad idea...

First, because the memories of my pitching days are much prettier than what ten years out of practice reality actually is. Out of, oh, 473,000 pitches, I think I threw 3 slow pitch (I played fast pitch) strikes. On top of it, a 10,000 mile an hour ball came at me, which I caught, sort of, until it bounced out of my glove and struck me in the chin leaving stitch marks (battle wounds) in place of my new spray on foundation from MAC. AND three days later, I still can not lift my poor right arm over my head.

In my moments of cripple-dom, I had a lot of time to think about all of the other things I suck at now...

Biking. Yes. "It's just like riding a bike." Fine. But let me tell you, riding a bike is not even "just like riding a bike." I got on it, started to tip, had a small panic attack, thought I might die, and have since found home on the stationary bike that won't dump me onto a pile of gravel on the trail.

Cooking. Some of you who read this might laugh, but I really did used to be quite the little chef. In college, my roommates might have starved if not for me and my mother-donated recipe box. But somewhere along the way, I got lazy. Actually, let's "euphemism" this and say "cultural" in wanting to try out all different kinds of restaurants.

Farsi. Yeah, I used to speak it. So what if I was 5, but rumor has it that this girl was bilangual at the early age, until my second language was neglected in the home. Kinda not my fault, but still.

Makeup. I don't know if its my inability to do my own makeup, or just my skins inability to wear it proudly anymore, but when I look back at pictures from my earlier days of makeup wearing, it just looked better back then. Maybe because I used to spend an hour getting ready to go to the grocery store, and 2 if I was actually going somewhere there might be a camera. Either way, rest assured though, that I still can do other people's makeup. Feel free to hire me for your upcoming wedding or event.

I could go on. But my right arm is making it difficult to type from pretending that I'm still an all-star pitcher...